Britons a massive wasters when it comes to food

The worst offenders when it comes to wasting food in Europe, are Britons, according to research.

Collectively, Europeans waste around 22m tones of food per year, so say the results that were published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. And it turns out that Britain wastes more food that our neighbours, totting up to the equivalent of a tin of beans, per person, per day.

Mostly, we're throwing away fruit and veg (and cereals) thanks to their short shelf life. While we're preening around, lobbing stuff on the rubbish pile, there's other issues other than being fantastically spoiled in our developed, wealthy country - it means there's a greater impact on nitrogen and water resources.

"In some ways it's good that this waste is 'avoidable', because it means we're able to do something about it," said Davy Vanham of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, who led the work. "We've noticed that there is less food waste as the population tends to have less money. Waste in cities tells us a lot - this is where the bulk of our population is living now."

So how can we avoid this? Well, according to research, adults are too stuck in their ways and will continue to live like this, but if we teach kids at school the ways in which to avoid such wastefulness, there should be some good results... eventually.